Sukkah, Daf Daled, Part 5
Introduction
Today’s section deals with a person who puts up four poles and then skhakh on top. He puts up no walls. Can we pretend that there are walls?
תנו רבנן: נעץ ארבעה קונדיסין וסיכך על גבן, רבי יעקב מכשיר וחכמים פוסלין.
Our rabbis taught: If he drove four poles into the ground and put skhakh on top of them: R. Jacob declares it valid and the sages declare it invalid.
As we shall see later, this person seems to be building his sukkah on a roof. He drives four poles into the roof and somehow manages to get valid skhakh to stay up top. Rabbi Jacob declares that the sukkah is valid. But the other sages say it is not valid because there are no walls.
אמר רב הונא: מחלוקת על שפת הגג, דרבי יעקב סבר: אמרינן גוד אסיק מחיצתא, ורבנן סברי: לא אמרינן גוד אסיק מחיצתא.
R. Huna stated: The dispute relates only [to poles erected] on the edge of a roof: R. Jacob holds that we apply the rule of draw the partition upward while the sages hold that we do not apply the rule of draw the partition upward .
R. Huna, a Babylonian amora, limits the dispute between the two positions in the tannaitic baraita. R. Jacob says that such a sukkah is valid only if the sukkah was erected on the edges of a flat roof. In such a case we can imagine that the walls below were drawn up above such that they can serve as walls for the sukkah. This is the principle of "גוד אסיק" that we mentioned in yesterday’s section.
The other rabbis do not invoke this principle. The sukkah is invalid.
אבל באמצע הגג – דברי הכל פסולה.
But [if they were] in the middle of the roof, all agree that [the sukkah is] invalid.
This is the continuation of R. Huna’s statement. If he puts the poles in the middle of the roof and not the sides of the roof, even R. Jacob agrees that the sukkah is invalid. There are no walls to fictitiously draw upwards.
ורב נחמן אמר: באמצע הגג מחלוקת.
R. Nahman said: there is a dispute if [the poles are] in the middle of the roof.
R. Nahman, another Babylonian amora, disagrees with R. Huna. He holds that the sages and R. Jacob disagree even if the poles are placed in the middle of the sukkah.
איבעיא להו: באמצע הגג מחלוקת, אבל על שפת הגג – דברי הכל כשרה. או דלמא: בין בזו ובין בזו מחלוקת? תיקו.
They asked: [Does he mean that] the dispute concerns only [poles that were erected] in the middle of the roof, but if such were erected on the edge of the roof all agree that it is valid, or is it possible [that he means that] the dispute concerns both cases?
The question remains undecided.
The Talmud now asks exactly what R. Nahman meant. Did he mean that there is a dispute only if the sukkah is built in the middle of the roof? If the sukkah was built on the sides, the rabbis would agree that one can invoke the principle of "draw the partition upward."
The other possibility is that R. Nahman meant that even if he makes it in the middle of the roof there is a dispute. The sages would always invalidate such a sukkah, and R. Jacob would always validates it.
The Talmud does not have a resolution to this question. This is called a "teko" which in modern Hebrew means "tie" but in Aramaic means let it stand.
In this case, what this means is that the Talmud does not know if R. Nahman thinks that the sages allow such a sukkah built on the sides of a roof. Since the halakhah assumedly will follow the sages and R. Nahman, this means that the Talmud does not answer a practical halakhic question. Don’t worry, this is a frequent occurrence!